


Brother

by SketchLockwood



Category: 15th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:48:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26989279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SketchLockwood/pseuds/SketchLockwood





	2. Chapter 2

Cambridgeshire 

1470

Joan Ingoldesthorpe sat beside the fire. Opposite her was the man who had caused her worries. John had ever been on the right path. Perhaps the most intelligent man she had ever met.Intelligent, yes and their father had seen it in him when he had insisted John attend Oxford for university. Scholarly pursuits had been John’s sole passion since then. She had never seen him as eager as when his eyes devoured his books, then when he wrote his letters. His religion came third and the law? The law had ever been something he had aimed to uphold with an iron fist. 

That had seen him in positions of authority. Had seen him at the very top of the rankings. Had offered him places which helped to govern the country and keep it from falling into a lawless state at the hands of those anarchists who would dismantle every inch of their society. 

Yet now? Now she knew she harboured in her own house a man most wanted by commons and lords. Knew the consequences and cared not. He needed her in this moment. His wife he could not go to, she had turned her back on him in a way a wife should, must never do. Joan had never turned her back on her husband, plain though he may have been. Had Edmund ever decided to rebel, she would have stuck by his side no matter how reluctant she would have been. She could not have been more reluctant than to follow the changing loyalty of a man who either knew not which camp he stood in, else refused to accept and fight for his own loyalties as Edmund had been.

John had been raised under Henry’s regime and had profited. He had avoided war as best he could and all had known his truest motivations for staying so long i Italy when he did not need to. He may have claimed it was solely to become a scholar. Yet he had been called back and obeyed to his own profit. And now? 

Now he had made a display, an example of the Earl of Warwick’s most senior men, he had humiliated them to the terror of Southampton. He had enforced the law in a manner more brutal than England had ever been used to. Joan had of course disapproved, had beseeched him to change his ways. 

Yet governance was not for her and she interfered little. Only cared for the unpopularity he had faced. An unpopularity that now made him an outlaw. Made him a man who would be accused of treason. A man who her hiding could see her too condemned. She had cursed internally when he had come upon her door. Yet she had not called for the local authorities, would not betray him thus. 

She looked up sharply as there a hammering at the door. “John,” she whispered, hurrying through the door which led to the kitchens. She did not know what she would do next. Did not know-

The door to the solar opened. “My lady.” The voice was not one that she expected. 

“My lord Montagu, how may I help you? is my daughter well?”

“Very, madam. I think you know very well how you can help me.”

“I am afraid you have caught me at a loss.” She offered with a smile. 

“I shall come out and say it plain then.” His tone was severe. She would be offered no mercy for her part in this, no matter that she was this man’s own mother in law. “You are accused of harbouring a traitor.” 

“By whom?”

“The baker-“

“The same baker who owes my cooks a months supply of bread? Or have you somehow found another?”

John Neville opened his mouth, closed it as he thought carefully on his next words. 

“If he is here, tell me where and nothing more will happen. If I find him here, and I will when I tear this manor down.”

“Under whose authority? Lord Warwick’s? He is not king.” 

“Oh but madam, it is the King’s protector that does give me permission and indeed an order.” Neville clicked his fingers at one of his men. An order to head toward the kitchens. Internally she cursed. She did not care about the consequences, not to herself. But to John? 

It felt like an eternity before the man returned with a second pair of feet. Why had he not hidden? 

“I found this one.” Neville’s man barked. She looked up. 

“What’s your name?” Montagu asked. 

“Paul.”

“Your role here?”

“My lady Joan’s head cook.” 

“Tell me Paul, under pain of death if you lie to me. Was my lord Worcester here?”

She expected him to look at her, to say where John hid. “No, my lord.” His voice was as level as usual, he showed nothing. 

“You’re quite sure?”

“Yes.”

“And if I asked the servants? Would they agree?”

“Yes. Because he was not here. Not to my knowledge sirrah.”

“Very well.” Neville said with dissatisfaction in his voice, he looked to Joan. “My apologies for disturbing my lady, we shall wait in the courtyard. I trust that shall not inconvenience you?”

“Not at all my lord, but I thought you intended to tear this manor down?”

“My mother in law is afforded some special treatment, but should I find you have lied to me? I do not know what I can do.”

**

Joan awoke to a hammering on the door. John? 

Christ John. She had worried so much, thought by now, three days after Neville’s visit he would have gone toward France. Would have set sail to join King Edward wherever he was. 

She hurried to her feet, taking the stairs two at a time. “My lady.” John Neville stood in the entrance way, his clothes soaked from the downpour. “My brother did want to come here himself, but I insisted it should be me.” 

“What is it, John, it is past midnight.” Her voice was unimpressed. 

“We found your brother, yesterday.” 

“Yesterday? Where?”

“To forest not half a mile away. I am sure you are aware how this looks?”

She straightened her nightgown. “I do not.” She snapped. 

“My brother thinks you lied. That you were holding him here all along.” 

“And what do you think? Do you depend on your brother for an opinion?”

“Me? No. I know you lied.” He smirked. Stepping closer with heavy steps. 

“Then you believe I should accompany you to London to stand trial for treason I suppose?”

“Not at all. I have told my brother my assessment of the situation as it was that day. Your servants were sure they had not seen him, you swore to it. If my brother does ask, on the bible, and Lady Joan? Myself and my men saw not a sign of him.” 

She nodded. “That is as it was. Where is he?”

“In the Tower.” 

“I would see him.” 

“Madam, that is neither advisable nor possible.”

“What have you done to him!” She shouted. 

“Not a thing, we will not treat him with the barbarity he treated others with.”


	2. Chapter 2

London  
October 1470

She hurried along, hood of her cloak lowered low over her face. She did not want to be stared at by the men and women here. Did not think she could suffer that. Not when she could not suffer being here, her throat was closing in on itself and she would choke she was sure. This was a situation in which she never thought she would find herself. The indignity of begging the guards to let her pass, the shame of having to be allowed through by the Earl of Warwick, the very man who had betrayed them and put them in this most horrible and hated situation. 

It was he she followed down the corridor now. They spoke not a word. He had tried to speak to her, silenced when he glare had told him all he needed to know. She struggled her hardest not to use the dagger she carried for her own protection to stab him now in the back as he had stabbed her brother. 

“Here we are my lady.” He said curtly. He clicked for the guard to open the door. Why was he under such strict security? He would hardly be likely to do anything. They likely had him bound in chains anyway...

She was surprised when she saw him sat at a desk, hands unbound, when the door opened. She was silent in the door way for a minute. That was until Warwick coughed. “You have a visitor.” There was something the the Earl’s voice. Something she couldn’t identify. 

Her brother turned now, eyes widened almost imperceptibly as he saw her. Only she would have recognised. She had known him since he was babe. He stayed seated, kept his cool. “Thank you my lord.” He said, now speaking to a superior not a friend. He had been stripped of everything, save the simple clothes he now wore. He waited until the door closed behind her before he spoke. “Joan. You shouldn’t have.” He stood, hurrying toward her, brought her into a tight embrace. She swore she felt a tear drop from his cheek. They flooded freely from hers. “It’s dangerous just for you to be here.” 

She shrugged, fighting his hands to do so as he stepped back, hands on her shoulders. “Oh Joan don’t cry. I am not worth your tears.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous. You are worth more, I’d face an eternity damned in hell and murder that man if I thought it would help.”

“You’d see me go to the block distressed for you and the fate I of all would know you’d endure.” She shook her head, bit her knuckles to hold in her emotions as her mother always told her she must. 

“You are ready?”

“More than Joan. I was ready this day already, but it seems that it was not to be. God has different plans for me.”

“John, it is not fair.”

“Life is not fair.”

“And I wish I had your faith in God, but this world seems to Godless right now.” He offered a sad smile, wiped her tears with his thumb. “I’ll have a word with that wayward daughter of mine, allowing her husband to rally against the true King - they say that is what did it and is why his grace had to-“

“Do not blame her. Joan. Promise me? She is not to blame for this, I myself made my bed. I did what I thought was right, serving justice for Edward and I gambled and lost.” He shrugged. “Isabel had naught to do with this. John? You may blame him, but my niece is guiltless.” 

“You underestimate the power we hold as wives-“

“Not against a man like John Neville, Joan. He holds enough power that Isabel had no say.” He shook his head. “I was writing to you, and Philippa.”

She smiled. 

“What were you saying?” 

“To have faith that this was not for nothing.” 

**  
December 1470

It had been for nothing. 

She wheezed. 

Eyes fluttered open as she looked at her physician. Shaking him off her arm. “Leave me!”

“Mother.” Isabel’s voice cut through the silence. “Please.” The younger woman cried. 

“I said leave me!” Joan snapped. 

“Leave.” Isabel said to the physician with reluctance. 

“Iz?” Joan struggled to sit as she heard John Neville’s voice. She could not find the energy to fight another battle as he came into the room. “Joan, I’m sorry you’re in so much pain.”

“Pain, because of you.” She spat. 

“Mother let us not all end in bad terms.”

Joan looked away. 

“Joan I-“ John stooped. “I’ll be outside Isabel.” 

“I’ll see the priest now. She can leave.”

“Mother-“

“I said you can leave.”

Joan wheezed. Pulling her hand away from her daughter. John, the treacherous bastard, was too happy to pull his wife away. Joan caught John’s arm. 

“Make sure that everyone is aware, John Neville, I intend to be buried in the chapel with my brother-“

“It is customary for a widow to be buried with her husband-“

“And I shall be buried near my brother. Not with Edmund. Am I clear?”

John nodded. 

“Do the only good thing you’ve ever done and make sure it is done and that your brother is aware, I and my brother will never forgive him. We will never forgive you and I curse your names.”

“Mother, do not be so vile.” Isabel protested. “We are leaving.”

“I understand your distress lady Joan. I hope your final hours are comfortable.” She turned her head away at his words. 

She turned her head away.


End file.
